XHTML, A Better, Cleaner HTML

There are some more “rules” to have a cleaner, XHTML friendly syntax.

• Attribute values must be quoted

• No attribute minimization

• id attribute replace name attribute

• The lang attribute

• Mandatory elements

Quoted Attribute Values

All values for any attribute must be surrounded in quotes (“”).

 
<img src=”thingy.gif” />
<table width=”95%”>

No Attribute Minimization

Some tags have attributes that in the past have been minimized in HTML. Now that is no longer acceptable with XHTML.

 
This is wrong:
 
<input checked />
<hr noshade />
<input disabled />
 
This is correct:
 
<input checked=”checked” />
<hr noshade=”noshade” />
<input disabled=”disabled” />

Here is a list of the previously minimized attributes in HTML, and what they should be in XHTML.